With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa

Rating:
Summary: The best first-hand account of Marine combat during WWII
Review: Author Eugene Sledge served as a mortarman with the 1st Marine Division during the battles of Peleliu and Okinawa. His devasting account of the horrors he witnessed are a must read for anyone interested in WWII. This could be the best personal memoir of combat ever written. If you want a full appreciation of what the generation of Americans who endured WWII combat went through, buy this book now.

Sledge takes the reader with him as he joins the Marine Corp, goes through boot camp, and ends up with the grizzled combat veterans of the 1st Marine Division. He takes us through his initiation of combat on Peleliu, a coral island which had some of the worst fighting, up to that point, in the Pacific. Today, there is a general belief that the battle for Peleliu was unnecessary, owing to the advancement of the schedule for the invasion of the Philippines. If this was an unneeded battle, Sledge shows in full detail the horrible sacrifice young Americans suffered.

His account of the battle of Okinawa is even more devasting. Where Peleliu was a dry, parched hell, Okinawa is a hell of rain, mud, muck and decay. Sledge is unstinting in exposing the horror and ever-present danger facing those in the frontlines. He shows the casual brutality of combat, and does not turn away from showing the hatred most Marines had for the Japanese. He shows the close bonds that develop between the members of a combat unit, the terror of shell-shocked soldiers, dodging bullets & shells on stretcher bearer duty, the stench of fighting in the middle of human decay, and the loss that is felt when friends die.

"With the Old Breed" is mandatory reading for anyone interested in WWII.

Rating:
Summary: This book on combat ranks in the very highest tier.
Review: This account by E.B. Sledge, a Marine PFC who landed on Peleliu and
Okinawa, details the violence and brutality of these two battles so
realistically that it is a disturbing and haunting book. Peleliu was
supposed to last 3 to 4 days, but went on for 2 months and cost the
Marines 1,262 dead and 5,274 wounded. The statistics from Okinawa
contain a action, and 26,221 neuropsychiatric "non-battle
casualties." At Peleliu, Sledge "had tasted the bitterest
essence of war, the sight of helpless comrades being slaughtered, and
it filled me with disgust." Peleliu was a jagged coral island
which caused cuts and tears on contact with human flesh, and there was
a lot of such contact. "It was almost impossible to dig a
protective foxhole in the rock." Once inland one's senses were
overwhelmed by the sight and smell of corpses filled with maggots,
human excrement on top of coral everywhere, dysentery, rotting
American and Japanese rations, huge flies, knee deep mud, rainstorms,
tropical oven heat, snapping bullets, and exploding shells. More than
once Sledge saw a Marine slide down a ridge into rotting Japanese
corpses to find himself covered with maggots and vomiting from the
smell. Peleliu was an "assault into hell;" the landscape
"hell's own cesspool." After the landing, with Marines
suffering from heat prostration, even the water came from hell --it
came in old oil drums, and the oil residue caused the troops to retch
in the broiling sun. When Sledge sees his comrades cutting gold teeth
from the Japanese--some while they are still alive--he is disgusted
and sickened. But war, Sledge notes, made savages of them all, and
one day Sledge finds himself bending over a Japanese corpse with a
knife to cut out gold teeth. A corpsman tries to dissuade him, first
with one argument and then another, finally succeeding by pointing out
the threat from germs involved. Relentlessly, Sledge and his comrades
move steadily forward, forward into the "meat grinder,"
losing more and more men to injury and death, the grim
"inevitable harvest." The sight of dead Marines who had been
tortured and mutilated by the Japanese hardens Sledge and his comrades
against the enemy. Sledge tells of the terror of walking across an
open field facing Japanese machine gun fire while at the same time
receiving friendly fire from the rear from a Marine tank. But there
was something "Artillery is hell," and of all the terrors,
"the terror and desperation endured under heavy shelling are by
far the most unbearable." Sledge learned to steer clear of any
and all second lieutenants, who invariably did not know what they were
doing and were highly dangerous to the troops. Sledge made two
amphibious landings on Peleliu and one on Okinawa. The rule
recognized among the troops was that if you made more than two
landings you had used up your luck. Even so, Sledge was one of less
than 10 in his company of 235 men to escape alive and
unwounded--thereby beating the "mathematics of death."
("Statistically," Sledge tells us, "the infantry units
had suffered l50 per cent casualties in the two campaigns.")
Dr. Sledge, who is now a college biology professor, writes: "War
is brutish, inglorious and a terrible waste. Combat leaves an
indelible mark on those who are forced to endure it. The only
redeeming factors were my comrades' incredible bravery and their
devotion to each other." From Sledge's viewpoint, Peleliu and
Okinawa were very close battles. His experience showed him that the
success of the Marines was grounded on their discipline, esprit de
corps, tough training, the ability to depend on one's comrades, and
boot camp, which developed an expectation to excel, even under
stress. Of all the books on combat, this ranks in the very highest
tier. Reading it is an experience--a new and terrible experience--of
what Marine infantrymen went through during and after an amphibious
landing in the Pacific in World War II. Without Marines like
Dr. Sledge, who put their arms and legs and lives on the line in these
savage battles, history would have taken a far different course. I,
for one, am profoundly grateful for what he and his comrades did, and
want to thank him for what he endured. We owe him and his comrades
more than we realize.


Rating:
Summary: ¿kaleidoscope of the unreal¿
Review: This is a gripping account of combat on Peleliu and Okinawa during World War II, without embellishment, without literary flourish. The narrative is simple, unadorned, raw. Sledge--a "fugitive from the law of averages" who survived some of the Pacific War's bloodiest battles--doesn't allude to Hemingway or Remarque, doesn't reference past wars (except fleetingly in discussing the martial tradition of the Corps); he's not interested in connecting his experiences to the ancient line of wars and warriors. Instead, he describes combat as it was, as he saw it and participated in it. Sledge takes readers onto those bloody islands--the relentless fighting on Peleliu, the stinking hell of Okinawa.

Sledge stresses over and over again that war is a waste, "a terrible waste." Young bodies are ripped and torn apart; young men are struck down in their prime and stripped of decades of potential life. Mentally, it is a waste, too. Exposed to brutal combat, civilized men quickly become savage themselves and, for example, pry gold teeth from dead--and, on at least one occasion that Sledge mentions, from wounded and still living--Japanese. There are many other moments throughout the book where the reader winces. And yet, while war is not glorious, there are qualities that men can show under fire, that shine brightly in comparison to the brutality: love, loyalty, bravery, esprit de corps, compassion. Sledge stresses those, too.

This is not an antiwar book, though. Sledge entered the abyss of war, endured hardships, confronted death, saw men torn down. He knows war is not pretty, not fun, not romantic. And yet he also knows that it is sometimes necessary and that, as citizens, we must sometimes sacrifice for our country. He concludes: "With privilege goes responsibility." So it does.